Amazon Sets Netflix In Its Sights, AMZN, NFLX

Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN), the leading Internet retailer purchased a small European movie rental company called Lovefilm. The company offers a product and service very similar to Netflix. Amazon, which is about 8 times larger than Netflix by market capitalization has an extremely wide audience, and is quick to act. The company Lovefilm operates in the European market, a sector in which Netflix has not yet entered. Netflix has been planning to move to other countries for quite sometime and has just begun to expand in countries other than the United States and Canada. It will now face competition from Amazon overseas. Additionally, Amazon could quickly bring any Lovefilm-type service to North America through its massive global reach. Netflix, which has faced very little competition until now will have to step up the pace in the battle against Amazon.